American politics

The air war

The ads take aim

DURING the third presidential debate Barack Obama said that Americans had heard “way too many TV commercials” about the race. Yet that has not stopped his campaign from continuing to bombard voters with advertisements depicting Mitt Romney as a devious, tax-dodging outsourcer, hell bent on raising taxes on the struggling middle class, gutting popular government programmes and undermining women’s rights. “Romney’s never stood up to China,” intones the narrator in one, as an image of a sweatshop flashes up on the screen. “All he’s done is send them our jobs.”

Mr Romney, for his part, suggests that Mr Obama is an unprincipled incompetent, who has allowed debt to balloon, jobs to evaporate, religious freedom to be trampled and the American dream to be eviscerated. “Doesn’t America deserve better”, the narrator asks, as Mr Obama grins widely, “than a president who will say or do anything to stay in power?”

American elections are fought mainly on the airwaves—and every four years, inevitably, the combat becomes more intense and more gruesome. This year Borrell Associates, a research firm, expects some $7.4 billion to be spent on television and radio advertising tied to all this year’s elections. On current showings, there will be almost 50% more ads than in 2008 in the presidential race alone, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, an academic monitoring group. The advertisements are increasingly concentrated in the ten or so swing states, and the vast majority of them are negative (see chart), a trend that becomes more pronounced with each election. In the three weeks to the end of September, just 8% of the ads in the presidential race were devoted to praising a candidate, rather than denigrating him.

Since the start of the campaign, Mr Obama and his supporters have warned that big-spending right-wing groups were about to release a torrent of ads that would skew the race in Mr Romney’s favour. In anticipation of this tide, the Obama campaign started advertising heavily over the summer, aiming to get their message over before it could be drowned out. The Romney campaign, the assumption went, would also have more money to spend once it could get at funds earmarked for the general-election campaign, after the Republican convention formally nominated its candidate in late August.

So far, however, the flood has not appeared. Outside groups have been spending heavily on Mr Romney’s behalf, but chiefly to close the gap between his relatively meagre outlays and the Obama campaign’s more lavish ones. From late April, when Mr Romney clinched the Republican nomination, until October 21st, Mr Obama and his allies spent $275m on advertising to the Romney camp’s $319m, according to the Wesleyan Project.

What is more, those figures understate Mr Obama’s presence on the airwaves, since his money went further. He and his allies aired 521,675 ads, according to the project’s tally, to 469,539 for Mr Romney. That is partly because the Obama campaign booked its ads earlier, locking in cheaper rates. Campaigns themselves, as opposed to parties or other outsiders advertising on a candidate’s behalf, are also entitled to cheaper rates by law. So the fact that roughly half of the spending in favour of Mr Romney comes from independent outfits such as American Crossroads and Restore Our Future is something of a handicap.

Mr Obama has also spread his ads more widely, with a bigger share appearing on cable channels. That allows more careful targeting of specific groups of voters with tailored messages: housewives via daytime soaps and cooking shows, for example, or Hispanics via Spanish-language channels. Mr Romney’s campaign has followed a more conventional model, with more ads aired during news programmes, and less variation in their scripting. The thrust has remained very consistent on both sides, however, with Mr Romney focusing on the feeble state of the economy under Mr Obama, and Mr Obama casting aspersions on Mr Romney’s character and achievements.

There is still a chance of a right-wing advertising surge in the final weeks of the race. This week Restore Our Future said it was launching an $18m campaign in ten swing states. American Crossroads and its sister group, Crossroads GPS, will spend at least $12m a week bolstering Mr Romney for the remainder of the campaign. But at this stage, says Jonathan Collegio of the Crossroads groups, with near-saturation of the airwaves, voters are more sceptical of political ads, making them harder to convince. He does not speak of swamping Mr Obama’s effort, but of keeping pace.

Such a stalemate is to be expected, says Lynn Vavreck of the University of California, Los Angeles. Candidates seek to neutralise one another’s advantages, and plan and budget accordingly. Moreover, the effects of political ads are so fleeting, she argues, that it is hard to gain a lasting advantage. Measurable impacts on polls, she says, tend to appear only when there is a clear disparity between one candidate and another on the airwaves, and even then they will largely dissipate within 48 hours. To deprive their opponents of that elusive boost, both sides will keep up their relentless barrage until the bitter end.

Living in Ohio, the very worst is the truly fringe stuff that gets sent out. Over the last couple of weeks I received a short newspaper on Obama's homosexual agenda, complete with details on how this homosexual agenda is responsible for America's poor economy, and a DVD titled "Dreams from My Real Father: A story of Reds and Deception" (complete with hammer and sickle above the word real) that likely tries to assert that a communist sympathizer was Obama's real father. I do find this stuff informative, however, since it gives proof that there is an effort to use bigotry and racism to motivate people to turn out against Obama.

Also, I've seen it have an effect. A co-worker of mine who previously had a positive opinion of Obama now says she is on the fence because she disagrees with the homosexual agenda Obama is pushing. It's scary what some people vote on.

I kept seeing an ad for a race which doesn't even name the opponent (or what it's for). The ad says x lives in a half million dollar home and pays no real estate taxes but wants to raise your taxes. After a few weeks of seeing this and wondering how it could be true, I googled "New Hampshire half million dollar house pays no real estate taxes" and found the story is this: she doesn't own the house. Her husband is headmaster or principal of Philips Exeter and they live on campus. I found an article in an NH newspaper about this. Wow. She pays income taxes - federal - on the value of the rent and I suppose the school pays the real estate taxes if they're not somehow exempt.

The problem in the system isn't that people can spend what they want but that they can say what they want. The TV and radio stations have a vested interest in not checking, if they were allowed to fact check, because this election is a huge financial boon to them. There are no consequences for lying. Or ridiculous distortion.

The kind of distortion in the ad I described are a level above what I see in more mainstream ads. A Romney ad, for example, that uses the American Enterprise Institute as a source is ridiculous but at least that is a source. The NH is more like "there's no proof he doesn't beat his wife" or "it has never been proven that x is not a child molester."

As far as I can tell it is simply a knee jerk reaction to marriage equality. She thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman and is opposed to changes to the traditional definition. I try to avoid arguing with co-workers, though I did feel the need to correct facts, such as her assertion that the US would be the first country to recognize same sex marriage, when in fact Canada, and some European countries, did so years ago (and while looking for a bathroom after crossing the bridge to Windsor I came across a really nice poster on the window of a LGBT advocacy group that showed the various degrees of recognition for gay marriage and other LGBT rights so am moderately current despite not really caring over much regarding the issue; though I do care a great deal about blatantly incorrect facts).
She also thinks that US recognition of gay rights would be different somehow, which is something I find baffling enough to not have had an argument for. Since there are plenty of countries that recognize it, I fail to see what difference one more would make, regardless of whether or not we are a super-power.

The people who say that they have seen too many ads already may not know what they are talking about. If you look at other industries advertising undoubtedly works. Take perhaps one of the more sophisticated markets, physicians. There is proof positive that they are swayed by the visits of the cute pharmaceutical representatives to their offices. This is an educated group that has data about how little a new drug works better than the old cheap ones yet they are continually duped by industry marketing. If they can be fooled no doubt the average american can be swayed by marketing. If I were running the campaigns, I would still be spending on ads until the bitter end.

In California there was similar "homosexual agenda" talk when a proposition came out to add a Constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Supporters of the proposition took out radio ads claiming that if it wasn't passed, somehow it would lead to kindergartners being read books in school about gay marriage and other such nonsense.

It's amazing the illogical linkages people can make to gay marriage rights (or lack thereof).

This time of the year I start to appreciate political ads, at least those that arrive by mail. I've been able to pretty much heat the house despite the snow and cold by feeding campaign propaganda into the wood stove.

I'm not sure physicians are really the best example. In many cases, they have spent years prescribing the brand-name before the generic comes along and the thing would have a certain amount of momentum.

True swing district for most seats, just south of Toledo and includes Bowling Green. It was solid Republican decades ago, but shifts over the last few years have made it a swing district for the Presidency. Given how the House districts are drawn, the Democratic candidate is SOL, however.

Strangely enough I get almost exclusively right wing mailers, I don't seem to receive any for the Democrats. I think it may be a conspiracy involving the owner of the apartment complex, for lack of a better explanation.

I think it's just that, for true believers on both sides, any change is the first step on a super-slippery slope to disaster. It doesn;t matter how innocuous that change is. Just because it is doing something different, it is bad and will lead to far worse in short order.

"Outside groups have been spending heavily on Mr Romney’s behalf, but chiefly to close the gap between his relatively meagre outlays and the Obama campaign’s more lavish ones. From late April, when Mr Romney clinched the Republican nomination, until October 21st, Mr Obama and his allies spent $275m on advertising to the Romney camp’s $319m, according to the Wesleyan Project."

Are those numbers correct? How is Obama's $275M "lavish" compared to Romney's $319M "meagre"?